Primrose Step Away: Mobile Intervention for Alcohol Addiction

Primrose Step Away brings the tools to make a change in drinking to your iPhone. Primrose Step Away will be your personal assistant as you go through the process of changing your drinking. It provides the structure you need to help you stop altogether or to reduce your drinking to safe levels. It will empower you by providing custom configuration for many features so you can decide how it will be most helpful to you, whether it is to help you stop drinking altogether or minimize your drinking to safe levels. With this app, there is no need to wait until your next meeting with your counselor to receive helpful strategies and feedback on your progress in your journey to conquer alcohol addiction. Immediate help will be right there on your iPhone.

Primrose Step Away has been specifically tailored to be helpful for individuals who have other health conditions such as Hepatitis C or other liver conditions that are exacerbated by heavy alcohol use. It is the result of a collaboration between Primrose Health Care, a company that provides technological solutions for management of Hepatitis C, and Here and Now Systems (the developers of the original Step Away). It is based on decades of research on effective interventions for alcohol addiction.

In a nutshell, Primrose Step Away will help you to:



• Become more aware of your drinking patterns and triggers.


• Set an overall drinking objective (to either stop drinking OR moderate your drinking) as well as smaller intermediate goals to help you succeed in stages.


• Reward yourself when you meet your goals.


• Stay in control when you are feeling tempted to drink by providing immediately available tools.


• Learn new and helpful strategies for dealing with cravings, bad moods and boredom.


• Keep you on track during your personally defined “high risk times” for drinking.


• Remind yourself about your reasons for making a change when you are feeling like drinking or are in a tempting situation.


• Learn what constitutes safe drinking if you have a serious health condition such as Hepatitis C


• Share your progress with others (family, friends or health care provider).


• Monitor your progress through weekly reports on your drinking, your triggers and your mood.


• Help you prepare for “high risk events” in the coming week - and strategically avoid alcohol triggers.


• Identify alternate (non-drinking) activities and schedule them directly into your calendar.

If you choose to utilize Primrose Step Away, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you allow the app to send you alerts and notifications. These are designed to keep you on track, particularly during times when you need help the most.